Forget all the modern gaming crap for a moment and let me offer a slice of my life leading up to the Casual Gamer I am today.
Let’s go back, umm 13 years, when times were simpler, and gaming was getting interesting and taking a turn for the worst at the same time (bloating budgets, wannabe movies, dumb-downed gameplay, with a corrupt and/or unskilled gaming press shoving it all down your throat; you saw what happened). OK, off-topic, I mean… just trying to say this is an informal snapshot of life surrounding that hobby; a new feature about old stuff.
This series will start off small since I didn’t have a great camera then nor do I have the typical human obsession to report things (seek attention) on-the-spot. I actually DON’T have many pictures of my stuff because I see it every day and therefore there’s nothing special in a day-to-day sense (but I could be mistaken). So below, these pics are literally the oldest and only photos I have from that time, taken with a “low end” $100 1MP digital camera.
We’ll kick things off with my bedroom, representative of my latter years of high school thru a couple years of junior college. I’ll point out a few things and leave others a mystery:
- Ranma 1/2 is my favorite “classic” anime from the early 90s. The wall scrolls are the good-quality bootlegged-art kind I’ve seen in local comic/anime shops up and down Northern California. I managed to hold onto them throughout college. They’re safely stored in a closet today.
- I wasn’t fond of that mattress. Too cushy on the top layer. I need firm support.
- Hanging off the curtain is my Media Badge from E3 2001. Amazing shit happened over there.
Now the desk:
- This is the spot where I began the GeoCities (good grief, that place) version of my homepage. More importantly, I used that underpowered computer to make several video game music videos, including one for Super Smash Bros. Melee., a mere 2 months after the game released. Note that YouTube and its shitty video quality didn’t exist for another 3 years; in time, I got irritated by its awful tech and poor standards forever after.
- The 27″ Sony Trinitron TV was rad because it provided HIGH-FIDELITY EXTREME RESOLUTION S-Video gaming from 1996 all the way to 2008. A Love Hina DVD is currently playing on it.
- It’s where I enjoyed my GameCube launch, working on these titles until I moved out: Luigi’s Mansion, Rogue Leader, Super Monkey Ball, Pikmin, SSB Melee, the REmake, Eternal Darkness, plus a rental of 007: Agent Under Fire (FUCK EA and this game; almost threw my controller at the screen because of its broken hit detection).
- It was also a great way to enjoy the dying Dreamcast (got it after the historic discount), especially Virtua Cop 2 (Sega Smash Pack Volume 1) using the excellent DC Mini Gun light gun by Hais.
- That mini purple foam GameCube sitting on my monitor is a freebie I got from Nintendo booth reps while playing the Super Smash Bros. Melee demo at E3 2001. Not only did I witness the game’s debut during the big press conference, I got to enjoy innocent hands-on time with the game 7 months before COUNTLESS KIDS began arguing about “tiers” and “balance” for the remainder of the series. Take your tournament rules and C-Sticks and shove-it. I’ve been a fan longer than you, but now I hate the game, thanks.
- And yes, that’s a glorious box of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Collection up there. It’s a relief to have just the original Red Storm-developed games before Ubisoft fucked it all up.
- I’ve kept this bed-window-desk arrangement at every new place, for my next 4 moves (ending 2012).
Lastly, my boxed game and VHS shelf:
- That is my entire N64 libary and what’s left of my SNES games. I really should’ve taken better care of my SNES junk when I was younger: misplaced cartridges, beat-up boxes, and missing inserts. Products that were incomplete were simply given away or forgotten in storage. I didn’t start improving my habits (OCD) until I got Mega Man X.
- I actually received that copy of 007: The World Is Not Enough (N64) for free. An older buddy from high school was working for EA and was assigned Lead Game Tester (for the first time) on this project, but didn’t have his own N64. So he borrowed my system and Perfect Dark for a few months, and returned with an early copy of TWINE to say thanks. Very cool gesture. Guess what? TWINE is a better product than that next-gen piece of shit Agent Under Fire.
- My launch edition GameCube: it died a year later. It’s dead. I was in the middle of Mega Man Network Transmission one summer and couldn’t resume until I replaced the Cube a month later. Sadly, I never went back to Mega Man Network Transmission, or any Mega Man. Just like Capcom.
That’s all I have for today. I’m out of gimmicks.
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Looking back… stuffing Photobucket accounts and posting in “crib” threads were a nice diversion from the usual forum “whine” festivals. Now I find it slightly annoying: today’s on-demand hastag insta-glam Social Media encourages fire-and-forget habits, quickly burying content or leaving it all over the place. I think a little organization can go a long way in telling part of your story. Most don’t seem to care, tho (as long as you follow/friend their account so you “never miss a thing”).
I’m hoping the other Pietriots will share bits of their albums and expand this series. Pretty sure they have lots of random treasure and history piled in their webbernet dumps over the years, and I wonder how many more GARMIN generations we’ll add down the road. There’s additional years/locations for me to cover, so I’ll have a better variety of pics next time.
Maybe some visitors would like to participate? 
Pietriots 
Cool article. You kept a pretty damn neat room. I’ll share my story, but it’s too late right now. Finding a picture, however, might not be possible.
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Thanks. Even if you can’t find photos, I’m sure some “creativity” would be appropriate: sloppy mosaics of google’d images, for example.
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I’m a youngin’ compared to ya’. That was my setup (or rather, my brother’s setup which I also considered ‘my setup’ because I never made my own) back in elementary. Same TV, same Ranma 1/2 wallscrolls (plus some – though they were mostly posters and only a few wallscrolls) (add in some DBZ and a few Irresponsible Captain Tylor), and blah blah geocities, angelfire, photobucket, starting forums blah things.
Though, I had no N64 games. I didn’t have an N64. I wasn’t into Nintendo back then.
I DID have a Gamecube, but only because it had Mario Kart and Smash Bros in it, which were about the only games that Nintendo made that I liked. I was into Playstation. And before that, the Sega Saturn. And before that… well, I had consoles and handhelds from both Nintendo and Sega, but I wasn’t into the ‘gamer spirit’ until the Sega Saturn came along.
… I very much regretted missing the gems from the Gamecube generation because of my ‘elitist gamer’ behavior that stopped me from branching out into Nintendo-console games.
I have no photos, though. Any photos from back then would have been with my brother. And I haven’t seen nor talked to him in years. I doubt he took pictures of his setup though. He only took pics of girls and himself.
I still have a few of those Ranma 1/2 posters for myself though. A few of the VHS tapes too. Best series. People would say I was too young to watch that stuff, but that stuff’s innocent compared to the anime that hopped into appearance by the next generation. It was better that I grew off of that than Evangelion, that’s for sure.
Anyways, nice setup!
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Thanks. The similarities you mention are uncanny.
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I don’t have much of a history. About once a decade or so my life resets and I lose everything, or almost everything, and I have to begin again.
I distinctly remember two times where it was a near total wipe. The first time was when I was 12. It was two or three days into summer vacation and suddenly we had to up and leave. All we had time to grab was a little bit of clothes. Everything else was left behind. However that was before I got into video games.
The second near total wipe took place about 7 years ago. I had managed to build up an impressive collection of games and hardware by that time. I remember my NES, SNES, N64, GC, PS1, DC, GB/C, GBA, DS collections all being destroyed. Again I ended up having to leave the situation with little more than a backpack stuffed with a few outfits. I eventually managed to rescue my PC and monitor but as for my games, there was already nothing left.
It was a few years before I was willing to start again. I eventually bought a new DS in Florida (I’m from California myself) while I was helping this guy institutionalize his wife who for some reason thought that her husbands spirit had moved into my body (yeah, I’ve lived a charmed life). I flip-flopped on getting a Wii but instead simply went over to a friends house and played theirs. Today I have a 3DS and a Wii U but I simply refuse to let myself get too attached to them (or anything else for that matter).
As for photographs, the only ones I have are on my IDs. I don’t take or keep pictures of anything any more.
At least I’m finally getting the chance to watch Ranma 1/2 now that Hulu has it.
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Sadly, these days the vast majority of my collection is stored in boxes in the closet of my old room at my parent’s house, since I don’t exactly trust the neighbors in the apartment building I currently reside at. One day I do hope to find a better place to properly display my “Room of Doom”, as they were called in the collector’s section of the old Tips & Tricks game magazine, which me and a co-worker/friend would drool over when we were supposed to be manning the cash register. Ah, my twenties, when I didn’t give a rat’s ass about my shitty retail jobs. Good times. No, wait, no they weren’t. I worked at a Wal-Mart in the red-neckiest town in Virginia, it was f***ing awful.
Ahem. Anyway, I *did* have somewhat of a display setup during the couple of years or so I lived with my parents after moving to Georgia back in 2004-2005. Remarkably, I found these on Digital Press, which I haven’t visited in years, mainly due to the overwhelming rise in the number of trolls and basement dwellers who are too busy enjoying the smells of their own farts. Sigh.
I’m not sure how to post photos into these replies, so I guess links will have to do. Here’s the first photo:
The main setup: Around this time I had around 300+ games across various Nintendo systems. My Virtual Boy proudly displayed, though admittedly rarely played. The left bookcase holds my Gamecube games and my NES carts, the right holds various SNES and N64 titles. I lost most of my game boxes in a previous move, so I’d be spending a lot of time later on replacing those… fortunately, I got many of them replaced before the scalper market decided the cardboard box was worth more than the game cartridge. Also displayed are Mario and Link statues from JoyRide Toy Studios, shortly before they switched over to exclusively producing Halo toys, and then swiftly into obscurity. The middle tupperware drawers hold a variety of controllers and Gameboy games.
Also of note is the small Mario poster I’ve had since grade school. And The Waterboy is arguably the last truly funny Sandler movie.
My display of various Pokemon games and goodies… not really much to say, except I’m still waiting to get proper, articulated Team Rocket figures.
And finally, boxes and other goodies shoved into my closet. Of note is the now incredibly hard to find Pokemon Box, various CIB Gameboy games and systems, a stack of game magazines, a small collection of Gamecube Demo Kiosk discs (which I have nearly all of now), and some Master System stuff I had gotten to give to my aforementioned friend for Christmas.
Anyway, that was a look at my collection ten years ago. It’s expanded to about 1000+ games, and that’s after I severely pared down my collection several times.
That’s it for now. I’m actually late for an engagement, so later!
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Hey Josh, nice amiibos. The photobucket links did a decent job. Mind if repost this as its own article?
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Sure, that’s fine.
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I’d take and post pictures of my room but I’m a horrible slob. Lots and lots of clutter.
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